(Dallas-AP) -- The Baptist General Convention of Texas says A-M-C Theatres are refusing to accept a 30-second ad timed to coincide with the Ash Wednesday opening of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."

The ad opens with a young man asking, "You want to see the most scandalous story ever?"

The black-and-white ad ends with the message, "Now playing at a Baptist church near you."

The Baptist convention's Becky Bridges says A-M-C officials described the ad as "too dark" and "too Christian." But she says, "We followed all their regulations: Not using Jesus, Bible or any other overt God talk." Bridges adds that they also avoided using religious symbols "or other things that might appear to be judgmental or proselytizing."

I'm not sure how they got "too dark" and "too Christian" out of that. And the biggest reason I think that is because of 1)the dark movies they are always playing, and 2) the fact that the people going to see The Passion of the Christ are going to be a bit more open-minded about seeing a Baptist church's ad than people who have no interest in seeing a movie about Jesus.